Jesse Ventura on Drugs

Former Independent MN Governor

While we fight "war on drugs", Afghans do our drug business

The WikiLeaks cache of State Dept. cables contains quite a few about our war in Afghanistan, but none more revealing than what our diplomats really know about the country's president, Hamid Karzai. One secret cable talks about how he'd released 150 of
the 629 detainees that the coalition had transferred to Afghan custody since 2007--and pardoned five border police who were caught with 273 pounds of heroin in their vehicle and already been sentenced to prison. Karzai's brother is portrayed as a corrupt
drug baron.

It's time we faced facts: fighting the Taliban over there is at the same time propping up the biggest drug-based regime in the world.

The World Bank issued a report in 2006 on "Afghanistan's Opium Economy." Isn't it interesting that we're
fighting a "war on drugs," yet over there we have no problem with this? Certainly those drugs are going to get here eventually, again just follow the money. But obviously the Afghans involved can buy protection and continue their business.

Banks & prison-industrial complex gets rich on the drug war

Federal law still considers marijuana a dangerous illegal drug, although 14 states have now enacted laws allowing for some use for medical purposes.

Let me cite a few statistics that I find mind-boggling. According to NORML, an advocacy group for
legalizing marijuana, more than 700,000 of America's estimated 20 million pot-smokers got arrested in 2008. About HALF of the 200,000 inmates in our federal prisons are in there for drug-related offenses. Between 1970 and 2007, we saw a 547% increase in
our prison population, mainly because of our drug policies. Of course, that's just fine with the new prison-industrial complex, where corporations are now running the show. We as taxpayers shell out $68 billion every year for prisons, & a lot of that end
up going into private contractors' pockets!

Of course, they're not the only ones getting rich. Well-documented federal reports lead to the conclusion that American banks are "collectively the world's largest financial beneficiary of the drug trade."

Let states decide medical marijuana laws

Early in 2001 Bush stated that he was a strong believer in giving more power to the states, which I applaud. He was going to be, he said, an old-style Federalist president. I believed him.

Yet just about every move he's made since that day has taken power away from the states. Cases in point: 12 states have now passed laws to allow the medical use of marijuana.
The federal government under Bush says no way, it won't let the states do this. 2 states have voted for dignity in death. If I'm living in MN and terminally ill,
I could have the option of moving to Oregon and fulfill my wishes not to prolong the agony. Again, the Bush administration says, oh no, you can't.

Treat marijuana like we treat alcohol and tobacco

I wish that Canada and Mexico would legalize marijuana, because that would put the US on an island. You'd have two countries proving, like the city of Amsterdam has, that making drugs legal is not a negative formula, but the best way to deal with the
problem. Making something illegal doesn't mean it goes away, it just means criminals are going to run it.

Why not treat marijuana in the same way as alcohol or tobacco? It's so widely used, and it has medical purposes that are denied by the US Food and
Drug Administration. Numerous doctors and private studies have clearly shown that medicinal marijuana is a painkiller that can help cancer and AIDS patients and can also be used to treat glaucoma.

The fact is growing hemp for industrial purposes would
make it a very useful plant. It can be a fiber for clothing, a source of paper, even an alternative fuel. Canada is already using hemp this way. I simply don't see that cannabis grows wild on earth just so humans can eradicate it.

Drug addiction is a health problem, not a crime

Nobody’s ever been able to explain to me why we waste prison cells on drug addicts. Drug addiction is a consensual crime, it’s a “crime against oneself.” How can we justify letting violent criminals go because of overcrowding, when there are so many
people behind bars whose only crime is they’re addicted to something Drug addiction is a health problem; it should be treated medically, not criminally. If we treated it that way, it would provide a tremendous relief to the prison systems. Not only that,
but many of the users could be paying taxes while they were in outpatient treatment instead of being a burden to the rest of us.

I keep hearing case after case of somebody doing ten years for drug possession sitting in a cell next to somebody doing
two years for a violent crime. Marijuana can get you more time than assault. We’ve got to change that. Prisons should be reserved for violent criminals. Putting anybody else in there is a misdirection, and a complete waste of government resources.

Drug War fails like Prohibition did

I believe the war on drugs is a failure for the same reasons Prohibition was a failure. My mom told me about that. She lived through it. She saw that as soon as the government made alcohol consumption illegal, criminals cornered the market on liquor.
Getting alcohol went from a safe, legal, affordable activity to one that often involved bloodshed and obscene amounts of money. And it gave rise to half a dozen other crimes as well. It caused a huge groundswell in organized crime.
It made a lot of criminals rich. Today, illegal drug use is doing the exact same thing.

Just imagine if we could find some way for addicts to get their drugs cheaply, safely, and legally.
The bottom would drop out of the illegal drug market. We’d see a huge drop in organized and violent crime.

Stopped taking steroids & made FDA posters against them

Back in the 1980s, when steroids were legal, wrestlers were eating them like candy. It was accepted. Then all of a sudden, when Ben Johnson got caught using them in the 1992 Olympics, they became the Scourge of Humanity.

I had been talking
about them for years, saying, “Doesn’t anybody else out there see what’s going on?” Steroids came into wrestling with the advent of the bodybuilder physique popularized by “Superstar” Billy Graham [a professional wrestler], who suffers grave medical
problems to this day from his past use. Not only do they shorten your life, but guys who took a lot of them were susceptible to what became known as “’roid rage.” They’d suddenly snap under the slightest pressure and would go into a frenzy.

I used
steroids occasionally myself. I would take testosterone for 30 days, then I’d go off it for nine months. But I later found out they were destructive. I even did a poster for the FDA once, explaining that I once took them and warning kids not to use them.

Tougher drunk-driving laws for repeat offenders

There’s no question that we need tougher drunk-driving laws for repeat offenders. We need to take a lesson from European countries where driving isn’t a right but a privilege. There isn’t a person on this planet by this time who doesn’t know
that when you consume alcohol you shouldn’t get behind the wheel of a car. The people who do it anyway should have their privilege to drive taken away.

Source: Ain’t Got Time To Bleed, p. 38
, Jan 1, 1999

Stop being so afraid of marijuana; some uses are OK

Our government has the weirdest bias against cannabis. There’s no reason for everybody to be so afraid of it. It’s not the antichrist the DEA makes it out to be. Industrial hemp is a very useful plant. I challenged the attorney general to get rid of the
criminal stigma associated with hemp so we can look at it in terms of how it might be useful. And government has no business telling us what we can and can’t use for pain relief.

Source: Ain’t Got Time To Bleed, p. 38
, Jan 1, 1999

The war on drugs has failed; look for other solutions

We shouldn’t be wasting so much time and so many resources on prosecuting consensual crimes such as prostitution and drug possession. I hold drug possession and drug dealing as two totally different concepts. The drug dealers who resort to
deadly street violence should be dealt with severely as the criminals they are.

But we have to become willing to admit as a nation that our war against drugs has failed. And we have to start looking for other solutions. I want the drug business
stopped. But I know it never will stop as long as people want the drugs. It’s supply and demand. You can even get drugs in prison.

But if there were no more demand for drugs, gangs and drug dealers would be out of business. I think the key lies in
keeping young people from becoming their customers in the first place. If parents get involved, and if schools educate young people about the dangers of drugs, we can dry up the drug dealers’ customer base. That’s how we win the war.

Rethink approach to drugs; “more of the same” fails

To successfully address the drug problem, we need to rethink our approach from the bottom up. Career politicians can beat their chests all day long and talk about how tough they are on drugs. That approach is already a proven failure. While politicians
wage their war on drugs, the drug dealers are winning it.

We don’t need more of the same. We need to rethink our approach. As your Governor, I’ll bring people together and provide the administrative resources to facilitate that rethinking process.

Source: E-Democracy Debate
, Oct 5, 1998

Jail won’t work when we can’t even keep drugs out of prisons

Q: What about Minnesota’s climbing prison population and an apparent stalemate in the war on drugs?

A: Overcrowded prisons and increasing criminal justice expenses are partially due to the misguided way the war on drugs is being waged.
Harsh drug sentences have filled our prisons to overflowing with non-violent offenders. Have these harsh sentences worked? No. Does the average citizen feel we are winning the war on drugs? No. Does it make sense to consider new approaches to the
so-called drug problem? Absolutely.

Under our current laws, we can’t even keep illegal drugs out of prison. How can we expect to keep illegal drugs off the streets? It doesn’t matter how many drug dealers and users we put in jail.
As long as people use illegal drugs, and huge amounts of money can be made by selling them, there will always be more dealers to replace the ones we lock away.

Source: E-Democracy Debate
, Oct 5, 1998

More federal funding for all aspects of Drug War.

Ventura adopted the National Governors Association policy:

To reduce the presence of illegal drugs, drug-related organized crime, and the adverse effects of drug and alcohol abuse in society requires a comprehensive strategy involving federal, state, and local governments. The Governors believe that one of the most severe public health threats is the recent rise in substance abuse among children.

The Federal Role The profits from illicit drug trafficking can be effectively used to help state efforts to dry up the demand for these drugs. The nation’s Governors urge the President and Congress to fully fund drug and alcohol abuse education, drug courts, treatment, prevention, and law enforcement efforts, including the initiative to combat and clean up methamphetamine production laboratories, at the state and local levels of government.

Intensified Eradication and Interdiction Federal funding for use of the National Guard in drug and border enforcement deserves continued support. The Governors urge
the President and Congress to utilize the role of U.S. military forces in interdiction efforts.

High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program. The HIDTA program provides additional federal funds to those areas to help federal, state, and local law enforcement organizations invest in infrastructure and joint initiatives to dismantle drug trafficking organizations. Governors support the HIDTA initiative and urge Congress to continue supporting the program.

The Federal Role in Reducing International Drug Trafficking. The nation’s Governors urge the Administration and Congress to significantly tighten procedures for certifying foreign countries for eligibility to receive U.S. aid based on their cooperation with U.S. surveillance, interdiction, and eradication efforts.

Drug Legalization The nation’s Governors believe illicit drug legalization is not a viable alternative, either as a philosophy or as a practical reality.